What our planet of nations needs, almost more than anything else right now, is a shared image of existence – a sacred mandala that can guide a deeper contemplation of the universe and of our own human nature. If we had such an understanding of ourselves and all things, I am sure that most if not all of the vexing problems currently pulling us into conflict and despair would simply not be with us.
Obscene wealth and abject poverty, racism and sexism, labor exploitation and resource depletion, bigotry and violence, anxiety, meaninglessness, and depression – these debilitating conditions (and many more) would, in fact, be vanishingly rare and quickly resolved.
Given our vast diversity as a species across numerous continents, cultures, nations and traditions, you would be forgiven for thinking that such a collectively held sacred image of existence is nothing more than an idle fantasy, and certainly a practical impossibility. What should we do next: Convene a worldwide conference, invite everyone, and then facilitate a dialogue where these multitudes, and the countless individuals comprising each multitude, are given the opportunity to articulate their distinct worldviews and search for ideas and values they have in common, with a goal of clarifying this agreement in a universal statement of belief that can be promulgated as the New Orthodoxy?
You’re right, that would be impossible. Constructing a point-by-point consensus out of the dizzying complexity of human perspectives and belief systems around the globe is probably not even a goal we should be considering. Just imagine a world where everyone feels, thinks, believes, and behaves the same way!
Fundamentalist religions dream of such a world, but their dream is definitely an idle fantasy – and also a dangerous delusion.
There is another approach, however, which doesn’t start with consensus-building. Instead, it retrieves from the ancient past and our own spiritual intuition a sacred image (icon or mandala) containing and reflecting a deep – perhaps the deepest – insight into existence, the universe, and our place in it. This image is innate to the human mythopoetic imagination, as the seed-source of timeless mythic archetypes that have shaped and inspired all the world cultures. It was the germinal origin at the dawn of religion, art, storytelling and the human quest for meaning.
How about it, shall we take a closer look?
The illustration above is one example of this gestalt or holistic (and holy) image in the depths of human experience. The silhouette of a tree is centered inside a circle surrounded by a thick dark band. Accompanying the tree and similarly anchored to the inside of the circle’s rim are droplet-shaped objects of various colors. For this meditation, we will identify the tree as you – a human being whose essential nature is the complementarity (Yang-Yin) of an animal Body and a spiritual Soul.
Body and Soul are not two halves, parts, pieces or separate natures, but simply refer to the extroverted (outward turning) and introverted (inward turning) orientations of human consciousness.
As illustrated in the mandala, your Body perceives, encounters, and engages with other bodies or beings (represented by those colored droplets) inhabiting this sensory-physical realm with you. To encounter the other, you must go outside yourself – or better yet, consciousness must extend beyond the boundary of your Body.
Now turning inward, the Soul reaches into the depths of your essential nature. This experience is not a matter of perceiving or encountering something else (i.e., other bodies or beings), but rather of releasing and descending into a present yet ineffable Mystery. The mandala invites us to follow the trunk of the tree along its hidden roots in the ground below.
Here we have the complementary experiences of your essential nature as a human being. Inflected outward through your Body, consciousness perceives a multiplicity of beings at various distances from your physical location: other human beings, nonhuman animal beings, plant beings, rock beings, river beings, cloud beings, star beings.
Inflected inward through your Soul, consciousness follows its roots into the source and Ground of Being-itself. In the mandala, the roots of your being are anchored in the Grounding Mystery of Being – again, not another being, but the generative and sustaining power of be-ing in your essential nature.
Additionally, all those other beings, close by and farther away, are also inwardly grounded in Being, even if they lack the self-conscious capacity that allows you to descend, release, and surrender to the present Mystery within.
With this foundational intuition awakened to the deeper oneness of all things in the Ground, the mandala invites you to look again and reconsider the multiplicity of beings all around you. Now what you see is the Manifold Unity of all beings – a diverse, complex, interdependent, and mutually co-arising web of relationships, a higher wholeness that was not evident until you awakened to the Grounding Mystery of Being within yourself.
Having descended inwardly to the Ground within, all of existence becomes an epiphany, as the depth of Being shines through the myriad beings.
The Manifold Unity of beings stands out (Latin ex-istere) from the Grounding Mystery of Being: All is One, and we’re all in this together.
Once upon a time, this profound insight raptured the minds and hearts of our earliest human ancestors. Its inspiration took expression in the percussion, chanting, dance, song, sacrament, storytelling and worldview that would become the sacred enterprise of religion across its many cultural variations.
The solution to our current global crisis as a species does not lie in the past, however, as if reviving an old-time religion will bring about the salvation (healing and wholeness) we so desperately need. But it should also be clear that science won’t get us there, either.
Instead, the saving revelation must rise and break open from deep within yourself. As you draw in to your center and release in surrender to the inner depths of Mystery, you once again discover what was largely forgotten so long ago: that you are not a separate being, but a living and self-conscious manifestation of Being-itself.
Now open your eyes to the Manifold Unity of beings, who are not strangers but siblings – many waves of one Sea, countless stars of one Sky, a chorus of voices in One Song (uni-verse).
Behold the wonder of it all.
Tracts of Revolution 